T-Mobile makes the connection between wireless and banking services

The pitch is dead-simple. Earn up 4.00% annual yield on credit balances up to $3,000.

The twist: This deal isn’t coming from a big bank, or even a local credit union. It’s from wireless carrier T-Mobile (TMUS).

From the shiny happy people in its online ads, to the decidedly millennial-forward branding, T-Mobile MONEY is about the future of banking, platforms and disruption.

Digital transformation is finally getting a lot of ink in the financial press. Big companies are under assault from smaller, nimbler startups focused on the new digital reality. These companies, often run out of Silicon Valley and hip European enclaves, are building businesses that strike at the very foundation of established sectors.

In financial technology, new bank-like companies are taking deposits and offering checking accounts, while never opening a physical branch.

Everything happens online. Everything is digital. Money is no more than digits transferred to an account, to a payment processor, to a vendor.

In theory, this is a race that small, smart companies should be able to win. Unfortunately, taking on established banks is not easy. Lobbyists and lawyers clog up the system with regulations and roadblocks.

Building the best software is not always enough. And that’s only the beginning.

The emergence of new, data-driven business models means large companies outside of traditional banking have begun to compete.

MONEY is the first offering from BankMobile, a joint venture with Customers Bancorp (CUBI).

The $10 billion Pennsylvania bank has traditionally focused on servicing high-net-worth families and privately held businesses in Chicago and the Northeast. It built a profitable niche.

BankMobile, its first white-label partnership, takes the company into the realm of Banking as a Service. In an April 2019 investor presentation, managers pointed out that $20 million has been invested in research and development, with 250 team members devoted to user experience.

The new service is mobile first, branchless and laser-focused on customer conveniences. It’s built for millennials, people born between the early 1980s and 2000s.

T-Mobile (TMUS) will supply the marketing power, and the 81.3-million-member customer base.

Image credit: T-MobileMoney.com

We live in a world of platforms. The strength of Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Facebook (FB) and Amazon.com (AMZN) is that managers have been able to leverage large existing ecosystems into new markets.

  • Apple is now selling digital services.
  • Google wants to hawk YouTube TV subscriptions.
  • Facebook is building out payments.

It makes perfect sense for T-Mobile to leverage its across-the-board, best-in-class customer satisfaction to court millennials who have grown up online.

Related post: Bezos’ latest bet: Consumers want to bank with Amazon

MONEY customers will get access to a full digital wallet that incorporates contactless payments services from Apple, Google and Samsung. They will be able to automate bill payments, deposit checks by snapping pictures, and set up direct deposits … all from their smartphones.

There is overdraft protection, 24/7 customer support, and Customers Bancorp DNA means deposits are covered by the FDIC, for peace of mind.

The business works because everything is digital. Clicks and swipes provide valuable information. BankMobile plans to use data analytics to make banking more personalized and engaged. The data will also help build new digital marketing businesses.

T-Mobile is already the best wireless company in the country, by many accounts. John Legere, its quirky chief executive officer, embraced customer service. And new subscribers followed.

Image
T-Mobile’s Q1 2019 revenues were $11 billion. Image credit: Company investor presentation

In the first quarter of 2019, the company added 1.7 million net new customers. It was the 24th-consecutive quarter T-Mobile added at least 1 million new subscribers. The churn rate, the percentage of customers who stopped subscribing, was a record-low 0.88%. Sales advanced 6%, $11.1 billion, year-over-year. Profits grew 35%, to $908 million.

Now the company is getting into banking and other ventures like wireless cable TV.

Very often, investors look to Silicon Valley or Europe for disruptive business models. Smaller, nimbler companies are perceived as better. However, platforms and scale are more important than every before.

T-Mobile is about to leverage its dominant position in wireless to win millennial banking.

Shares trade at only 16x forward earnings for a market cap of $63.3 billion. By comparison, Verizon Communications (VZ) is growing slower and has a market cap of $235 billion.

I have been bullish on T-Mobile since the middle of 2018. The stock has been a steady winner, and that trend should continue as investors wake up to its huge platform opportunity.

It turns out that bigger is better when a business makes customers happy. T-Mobile can be bought into any significant weakness.

Shares recently traded at $74. Based on sales growth estimates alone, shares could reach $125 in two years.

For more tech plays like this, complete with detailed buying and selling instructions every time I see a profit opportunity that I don’t want to miss, check out my Tech Trend Trader service today.

Best wishes,
Jon D. Markman

About the Editor

Jon D. Markman is winner of the prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for outstanding financial journalism and the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi award. He was also on Los Angeles Times staffs that won Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the 1992 L.A. riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake. He invented Microsoft’s StockScouter, the world’s first online app for analyzing and picking stocks.

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